Starting the Garden

With beautiful weather and most of the garden finally drying out, we were able to till and plant yesterday! Dave tilled up two plots, one down in the "main garden" by the driveway, and one up by the chicken coop. We dug out five beds using a raised bed and trench technique. By digging out the walkways between the rows and placing the dirt on top of the beds, you end up with low trenches between beds.
This helps with moisture level and drainage, and also keeps you from walking through any of the beds. We mulch the trenches with straw to keep weed levels down, this helps with drainage too. Once the beds are formed, we add compost. We mix it in with a rake, which helps break up clumps and form a nice flat top to the bed. Linda helped us with all the trench digging, raking, and planting - boy is it fast with three people!

We planted a bed of peas (two rows), two beds of broccoli (two rows), a bed of beets (three rows), and a bed of cabbage (two rows). The rain came with perfect timing; knowing we would be getting lots of rain today we only had to water a little yesterday. Hopefully in a couple of days we can get in there and get all the other stuff planted - kale, more cabbage, turnips, radishes, lettuce, etc. After months of prep and planning, it's so nice to finally be getting things into the ground!

Check out the What's Growing photo gallery to see more pictures of our first plantings!